On any other day at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Daniel Galli and his four friends would not even be noticed for wearing T-shirts with the American flag. But Cinco de Mayo is not any typical day especially on a campus with a large Mexican American student population.

Galli says he and his friends were sitting at a table during brunch break when the vice principal asked two of the boys to remove American flag bandannas that they wearing on their heads and for the others to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out. When they refused, the boys were ordered to go to the principal’s office.

“They said we could wear it on any other day,” Daniel Galli said, “but today is sensitive to Mexican-Americans because it’s supposed to be their holiday so we were not allowed to wear it today.”

The boys said the administrators called their T-shirts “incendiary” that would lead to fights on campus.

What country is Morgan Hill in again? When Americans celebrate St. Patricks Day or Columbus Day, don’t we always see American flags flying right along side Irish and Italian ones? Why are the Mexican Americans at Live Oak High so insulted by the flag of the country that they live in? Do they not consider themselves Americans first?

The mother of one of the offending flag wearers gets it: “There will not be an apology. Matthew is part Hispanic. He is an American.” How many Californians consider themselves American these days?

A few youths were sent home from the local high school for subervisely wearing American-flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. “I think they should apologize,’cause it is a Mexican Heritage Day,” Annicia Nunez, a Live Oak High student, said. “We don’t deserve to be get disrespected like that. We wouldn’t do that on Fourth of July.”

Note the use of “we,” suggesting an ethnic allegiance that trumps the national one; note the equation of a Mexican Heritage Day with the Fourth of July; note the strange idea that the sight of the American flag leads to one being “disrespected”; and, of course, note the action by the school’s administration — banishing the boys for apparently politically incorrect, subversive behavior.

Incendiary? Since when is it incendiary to express patriotism for one’s own country? This is absurd, as are the demands for apologies from these students for offending those who observed Cinco de Mayo. One expression of celebration doesn’t interfere with another, however, as should have been obvious at the campus before the teachers got involved at all. If students want to “express themselves” by celebrating Cinco de Mayo, then they should be prepared to allow others to express themselves as well. Instead, they want the public expression monopoly at their high school — and the administration was stupid enough to concede it to them.

Let’s pause for a moment and peel back the layers. It seems that many of the Hispanic students at Live Oak High (and probably innumerable other high schools across the country) have been so inculcated with an “identity politics” curriculum that, under the rubric of instilling pride and self-esteem, they have been convinced that they are somehow distinct from and separate from the other American students; that “we” feel disrespected when forced to perceive an American flag.

The school administration then stirs in their own toxic contribution: An assumption (typical of the “soft racism” of leftist ideology) that Hispanic students will respond with violence when they feel disrespected (“the patriotic shirts could trigger fights” is the euphemism they used). Even worse, fearing violence from Hispanic students, the adminstrators solve the crisis by banishing the “offensive” items, rather than warning students that any violence will be severely punished. In other words, the racist administrators insultingly assumed that their Hispanic students would erupt in violence at the sight of an American flag, and the only way to prevent this is to cower at the presumptive violence and preemptively cave in to the mob’s demands that American flags be banned from campus.

Are the United States and Mexico at war? Is May 5 some kind of “Hate America Day”? What the hell is going on here? Aren’t the U.S. and Mexico allies? Aren’t we friendly neighbors? What is the source of the friction? Isn’t the United States a melting pot where people of every ethnic heritage all live together in harmony as Americans — rather than being a collection of self-segregated ethnic enclaves seething with mutual hostility?

Furthermore, remember that Cinco de Mayo is actually a minor holiday in Mexico itself, commemorating a little-known military victory; Mexican Independence Day is on September 16, not May 5. In what way does the existence of a jolly holiday in one country necessitate self-flagellation in other countries? Do the people of Mongolia hang their heads in shame and hide their national flags on Thanksgiving — simply because some Americans in the vicinity might feel insulted that Mongolians still loved their country on an American holiday? The very idea is ridiculous. Yet that is exactly the attitude enforced by the administrators at Live Oak High in Morgan Hill.

The left threw assimilation out the window decades ago, of course. And educators no longer teach civic pride. It’s all about assigning blame, assuaging guilt, and stoking grievances. P.C. is the death of us.

Outraged flag-waving patriots and cynics might say that when American flags are outlawed, only outlaws will have American flags. But I think the point of the anti-flag crowd is that it already represents a criminal regime.